Cow with right-of-way

It has not been a great month, what with my very close friend Brian Curtis, editor and founder of this paper, dying, and then having surgery myself that made me very conscious of my age. There have been better days.

One of the best days was when I interviewed Wellington based photographer Rob Suisted at his Johnsonville home. Sited high on the Wellington skyline it has sweeping panoramic views of the blue waters of the harbour below and the Rimutuka Ranges on the far horizon.

While standing with Rob admiring the view on a serene warm morning I asked the inevitable question, “What’s it like in the high winds?” Rob said a few years back in a typical storm, with roof flapping, power lines down and the cabbage tress bent in half, he received a request from a US magazine, ‘Weather-wise’ for pictures to illustrate an article, ‘The Wellington Winds’.

“No problem, I leaned out the window, fired off a few frames, shot some more up the street of the trees dancing and sent them off.” The cheque he received was just about equal to the insurance bill for the storm repairs.

While the coffee brewed we sat in his sunny kitchen, ignoring my list of prepared questions, and treated ourselves to looking through the great pile of prints covering his recent three-week trip to India. This was no carefully escorted journey through the amazing sub continent but a mainly solo motorbike ride of over 2000kms.

After arriving in Mumbai (old Bombay) Rob travelled south to Goa, that ex-Portuguese enclave that is renowned for its stunning beaches and ship-breaking industry. After catching up with his brother Phil and hiring a Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle from a local policeman, he underwent a crash course on the reverse gearing on the bike, local route finding and learning the ropes on communicating Indian style.

“Yes,” said Rob, “you might be talking with an English speaker but our logic is world’s apart. Once you have confused them you’re stuck.”

To record his whirlwind epic trip, Rob selected his trusty Canon 5D fitted with the sharp-as-a-cutthroat-razor 50mm f1.4, and for wideangle coverage he took a Zuiko 24mm f3.5.

Many of the pix were shot from his seat on the Enfield, some of the sleepy eyed cows taking a snooze in the middle of a busy highway were in stark contrast to the nightmare sight of 20-wheel freighters overtaking each other on blind corners; not quite what our NZ chaps in blue expect from the travelling public.

To quote from one of Rob’s emails: “The drivers drive well ahead of themselves and are totally focussed, even the cows know that standing in the middle of a blind corner is fine if you walk slowly in a constant direction. So it feels a bit like how Indiana Jones would ride. It’s a total blast, from some of the best riding to the worst.”

At one stage on his trip south mechanical problems sent Rob back to the small town of Sagar where he found an Enfield specialist mechanic, a very rare species, who, with the help from a couple of other workshop hotshots, discovered a faulty wiring system. Everything repaired after 4 hours work, for the sum total of 100 rupee (approx NZ$3.50). Could be worth shipping the old car over.

In between visiting a raft of temples Rob found himself at a village outside Shimoga, said village is the only place where Sanskrit is still spoken, and to make it all the more unique, no one spoke any English but not to worry, the villagers took this lone Kiwi to their hearts and the pix are there of him being shaved with many younger onlookers watching.

In reply to my question of did he ever feel threatened he said, “Never.” But he concedes he did wear a crash helmet most of his time on the road. And surprisingly he said many other motorbike and scooter riders also wore helmets.

Back at Goa and in memory of the legendary Bert Munro, who also rode a basic Enfield, he took his bike very early one morning down to the beach and opened the throttle. At the end of his run a kind local warned him the beach police liked fining tourists who gunned their bikes on the sand strip 2000 rupees. Enough said and off the beach.

Rob is an ardent enthusiast for India and hopes to return with other bikers next year, but before he experiences the heat of India again he is opting for a change of climate. A veteran of some eight trips to Antarctica working as a guide lecturer and photographer, Rob will shortly be on his way via the fiords of Chile to the Falkland Islands and on to South Georgia. He will fly to Chile and join the Prince Albert II, an American-owned ship specially strengthened for ice travel. The luxury ship will have just over a hundred passengers and a similar number of crew.

Rob, 38, has come from the world of film photography via Olympus, Pentax and Bronica. Now his flagship camera is the Canon 1DS Mark III, and among his new Canon lenses are the 14mm f2.8 (fantastic glass), a 14mm f3.5 tilt and shift, plus the usual range of mid level telephoto lenses, also the original workhorse Canon 5D. What impressed me with his kit, when considering some of the more extreme nature and scenic assignments he undertakes, is it was all in pristine condition with front and back caps in place! In his image library “Nature’s Pic Images” are over 50,000 images that range mainly across the NZ scenic, travel and nature spectrum. Besides having published several top selling pictorial books Rob has contributed to top publications worldwide plus he has had images on 9 NZ stamps as well as phone cards.

He could take the mantle as the Indiana Jones of NZ photography.

The hours had sped by and it was time to say goodbye to Rob and his able assistant Janette. What hurt the most was having to flag away his invitation to dine on tender venison back steaks topped by blueberry and horopito sauce and garnished with home grown salad greens.

All photos Rob Suisted

APOLOGIES
In my last column I committed the heinous crime of misspelling my good mate Dave Lintott’s name (the barefoot one).

This article is from The Photographer’s Mail issue #182.

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